


Coffee Brush

by Baekhanded



Series: FoxTail Cafe [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee, Coffee Shops, Fluff, Fluffy, M/M, Oblivious, Painting, along with renee i guess, andrew is healing, coffee paint, painting with coffee, shes an outsider all her own, this is an au where the monsters DONT know the upperclassmen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-06 01:04:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15875316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baekhanded/pseuds/Baekhanded
Summary: Andrew has a coping mechanism that makes him a general menace to most businesses. Neil needs the beauty in his life





	1. A Little Hobby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luneia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luneia/gifts).



> Hello! I thought of this after seeing exactly one (1) photoset of coffee art! And my lovely lovely friend let me scream about it to her! I hope you all enjoy it as much as she did and as much as i have!

Andrew enjoyed painting. No it’s not that he enjoyed  _ painting.  _ He enjoyed the  _ act  _ of painting. The brush strokes, the feeling of paint or water or  _ whatever  _ under a soft brush brought him what Bee would call,  _ A Sense of Calm.  _ He trusted Bee, and he knew he found some sort of….comfort in the simple brushstrokes. It emptied the overactive mess his mind usually was until it was nothing but brush, stroke, color, pattern.

 

Andrew was also a creature of habit, or something akin to habit. His family were much the same, their schedule could also be considered a  _ comfort _ . It was predictable and he liked being ahead of the curve. He would drop them off at their daily destinations, then he would go to his own. To wait. He was always waiting lately, but he found another comfort in that. In the garishly orange building an hour from his cousin’s work. The mad rush of customers once he entered the door, a happy bell sounding above him.

 

It was a cafe. Much like other cafe’s Andrew had been to, but somehow different. He couldn’t place it. He’d bring it up to Bee later. Or Renee. He waited in the line, not thinking about anything but the look of the building, about the obliviousness of everyone in the space he was sharing. It took no time at all, or maybe a lot of time, to reach the counter where an obnoxiously tall employee waited behind with a bright smile and tall hair.

 

“Welcome to the FoxTail Cafe! What can we make for you today?” he asked.

 

Andrew replied in the most lackluster, infuriating way anyone could ever reply to a barista, “a coffee.” 

 

That took the cheer out of the Giant- a glance at a name tag- Giant Matt’s smile. “What kind?” he asked, a little dumbly.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Andrew wasn’t in the mood for something, he hadn’t read a menu either. He didn’t  _ care. _ “Just sweet,” he added as an after thought, maybe to get the Giant Matt to stop staring at him.

 

It seemed to do the trick, it brought the smile back, brought a total, and finished the transaction.

 

Andrew waited a lot longer than what was expected of coffee. Or maybe it was just long enough when a small -but still taller than him- girl called his name and set a hilariously  _ wrong  _ coffee in front of him. Her name tag read Dan.

 

He didn’t say anything, just took the grotesquely wrong coffee and found a blessedly empty seat. Nicky wouldn’t need his services for another few hours, so Andrew did what he did best- he pulled a brush from under his sleeves and dipped it’s fine bristles into the too bitter, too dark coffee. He thought nothing of running the dark liquid over the FoxTail’s oddly lacquered, fine wooden white tables.  He ran his brush in nonsensical strokes. A pattern appearing eventually as the white noise of a busy cafe slowly diminished. Andrew checked the time, tipped his cup to the side, stood from his chair, and left. The coffee spreading across the table as the bell dinged his retreat. 

 

Let the employees deal with his mess, he thought nothing of it. He got into his car and sped to get Nicky.

 


	2. The Beauty of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil finds the paintings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im glad you guys seem to like this! It was such a whim!

 

Neil was trying. He had started at the FoxTail Cafe not too long ago, barely a person. Mostly a lie, mostly a mess made man. But he was  _ trying.  _ He didn’t hate the people he worked with. He hadn’t lost control yet, he hadn’t slipped. He hadn’t thought about what got him here in the first place in at  _ least  _ five days. That was  _ progress.  _

 

He had been skirting panic and fear so long, skirting paranoia and truth. Masking himself in meekness. It was almost a relief to feel the hot flush of anger ripple down his spine at seeing the overturned coffee cup.

 

Who  _ did  _ that?

 

Even  _ he  _ knew you didn’t do that in a public space. Live like an animal in private. His steps were heavier as he approached the offending object, but upon reaching his destination he halted in his steps. That’s not an overturned coffee cup for the save of overturning a coffee cup. Someone had... _ drawn in it? _ What the hell?

 

“That’s art,” he said aloud, to no one in particular. He didn’t know people could do something like  _ this  _ with coffee. It didn’t make sense. He always thought  _ art  _ was made with practical, typical materials; paper, canvas, pen, pencil, paint, brush. But coffee? On a  _ table? _ He was stunned. He hadn’t been caught off guard in so long. He had  _ never  _ been caught off guard by something pleasant. It felt like a weed whacker in his chest as he wiped up the spill and picked up the cup. He looked down to the table and saw no sign of the beauty that had adorned it just moments before.

 

It felt like loss.

  
  


\----

 

It becomes a common occurrence, but Neil has yet to find the one that makes the art on their tables. He hasn’t been able to discern a pattern. The color of coffee was never the same. It was never the same table, and it was never the same time. The only thing Neil knew was certain was that the mystery artist always showed up during a rush. When all of his coworkers were too busy to notice who was painting up their tables. It became a bright spot in his day, after each breakfast, lunch and home rush to check out the tables, to see what had been painted that day. 

 

The removals hurt. More than Neil thought possible for just mopping up a mess. Sometimes the mystery artist kept the cup upturned, in the center of a piece, making a full circle of  _ something.  _ Sometimes intricate, sometimes simple but always beautiful. Neil tried to get the pieces to seep into the wood. He tried hard. He played dumb, busy, blind and deaf, but each night the tables were cleaned with no trace to the previous beauty marking it. 

 

Neil tried to take comfort in the fleeting beauty. But it was hard. Beauty was a hard concept for him.

  
  


\-----

 

It gets Neil through his first few months at the FoxTail. It gets him through some of his worse days. A stranger that likes coffee only to paint with. A stranger that leaves beauty in a mess on a table. Always new and always different and always beautiful. Always leaving Neil speechless, his heart light. 

 

Most of the others knew of the mystery stranger as well by now. Mainly through Neil, whenever his excitement or pause had been to obvious. Some still didn’t believe him, hadn’t seen it for themselves. Dan believed him. Matt did too. Many bets had been placed. Most everyone started looking at faces, Neil had been looking for weeks. Nothing had clicked yet. 

 

It isn’t until a particularly rough, busy day that things change for them all.

 

“You guys!” Matt yells from a corner of the shop. “Someone painted us! They painted us in the coffee! On our table!” 

 

Everyone rushed to see it. Neil pushed his way to the front. Matt was right. The stranger had painted everyone of the FoxTail that day. It was startlingly realistic. He sees the detail, sees his scars. His heart clenches, and races at the same time.

 

He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t know what this feeling was.

 

Everyone broke out into a rautious conversation. Debating who it would be, how they could keep it from Wymack, how they could let it  _ stain into  _ the table. It drew him out rom his office. He knew his Foxes only got heated over certain things. They probably sounded like they were fighting. 

 

“What the hell’s goin’ on here, kids?” Wymacks gruff voice calls out. All the Foxes turn and try to cover the table with their bodies. Like children that broke a prize vase. Trying to hide the damage with useless flesh. Wymack was unimpressed and pulled them aside to see what had gotten them so riled. “That’s new.” Neil could note a bit of awe in his voice. Hope welled in his throat. He tried to squash it down, there was no point in hoping for useless things. “Leave it overnight, the wood’ll have taken it by tomorrow.”

 

The Foxes stare at him as he turns his back and returns to his office. They break out into cheers. Neil feels a smile threaten to engulf his face. Maybe hope wasn’t...well, hopeless after all.

 

As the days go by, the other Foxes start excitedly looking for the new pieces on their tables. More and more bets being placed, more diligence during the rushes. At the end of the day, they all circle the newest table, the newest art and at Wymack’s call, they let them stain.

 

It starts with the employee picture. Then an Alice in Wonderland with a beautiful cheshire cat and smoke and exaggerated, dream-like objects drifting off in the smoke. A clock, a hat, arrows hearts and cards. Following that is a circle of greenery; large mushrooms and ferns. Exaggerated leaves and petals and flowers Neil didn’t know. Then a whimsical pirate ship with a kraken coming for it’s hull while a whale circles it.

 

And then they stop.

 

Neil’s heart seizes when the day ends and he sees nothing new. 

 

“Maybe it’s a fluke?” Matt offers.

 

“Maybe they were busy today.” Dan placates.

 

“Maybe they were just tired of drawing in brown.” Allison says, affecting nonchalance. 

 

They days seem to get dimmer after that. It was something all of the Foxes looked forward to. Not even Matt’s smiles are as bright anymore.

 

Neil knew he shouldn’t have given in to the beauty of hope.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what yall think!!


	3. Painting in Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew finally notices

Andrew didn’t know what to think. What to  _ feel.  _ He had never come across one of his paintings again. He figured painting in spilled coffee would grant an easily erasable canvas. He never expected the  _ idiot  _ employees of the FoxTail to want to  _ keep  _ them. If that was what they were doing. That had to be it. He had seen three now. He had painted them almost a week ago now. He knew they weren’t  _ that  _ lazy, that they cleaned  _ every day.  _ Unless they just got a new table when it got too dirty? No, no that didn’t make sense. 

 

His heart starts to race. He leaves without ordering anything.

 

He goes back the next day against this better judgement. His blood freezes in his veins as he hears the customers  _ gushing _ about how  _ lovely _ these  _ art tables _ were. He tries to wait in line, his fists clenched at his sides. Then he hears someone talking about his Alice in Wonderland painting, and he has to leave. He turns and pushes people out of his way. He can’t be here anymore. He can’t come here anymore.

 

His nails leave bloody tracks in his palms. He sits in his car and scoffs. Bee wouldn’t be very happy about this.

 

He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

  
  


\---

  
  


Andrew liked order. He liked predictability. He liked the hours of his cousins work, early or late. He liked the hours of his brothers classes. Certain days at certain times. Always. He liked how the cat that claimed the grass across from Aaron’s anatomy building always begged the people during the lunch rush and had no interest in breakfast. Not even cat-typically-enjoyed foods.

 

Andrew used to like the easy place the FoxTail filled in his empty schedule. How he could mindlessly run his brush through too bitter or too watery or too creamy coffees and go blank while people minded their business and his space. 

 

Now he didn’t have that.

 

He needed somewhere new. Nowhere new was right.

 

He tried them all. The shop nearer to Nicky. It was too dull. Nearer to Aaron was too bright, too bubbly, too nosy. The shop an hour from the FoxTail was too dark. The one across the street was too much like everything he had tried to escape.  He thought he had known true uneasiness, but he learns quickly how it feels when every damn  _ coffee shop is wrong.  _ They’re just wrong. There’s nothing right about it. He itches for his knives. He knows, logically that no one  _ cares.  _ No one’s paying attention to some 5 foot nothing blonde nobody in such a public,  _ easy _ space. But he feels  _ wrong.  _ Damn Betsy for getting  _ something  _ through to him. 

 

Now he knows that nowhere will feel right. He doesn’t mind. His apathy carefully cultivated even in the face of such knowledge.

 

He just decides to go nowhere. He can make his own damn coffee.

  
  


\---

 

He made a critical error. 

 

He had told Renee about it all. About the FoxTail, about them keeping his strokes, about how  _ every  _ coffee shop was  _ wrong.  _ How he’d damn near given up and now takes his void spaces on random groupings of sidewalk. He never actually made his own coffee, he just stared at people as they passed him by.

 

At least no one had tried to toss him money.

 

Renee wasn’t a meddler, he hadn’t thought anything of telling her. He forgot one important detail- or more likely neglected to give it the time of day- she wanted him to be happy, she liked to nudge him in the ‘right direction’. 

 

He had neglected to notice Renee’s Nudger status until the day she walks up to him, staring blankly into space with her hands full of FoxTail to-go cups. She holds one out to him. He stares her down. She stares back.

 

He takes it, pops off the lid, slips his brush from his sleeve, dunking it into the too-dark coffee before smearing it onto the sidewalk between them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think!!
> 
> you can always come scream at me @ my tumblr! Yeollie-bells.tumblr.com


	4. A Shot of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe hope isnt a bad word

Things were more than monotonous now. It had been a month since Neil had seen a new piece of coffee-art.

 

“It was nice while it lasted.” Allison had said, her hand squeezing Neil’s shoulder in a show of support.

 

While he appreciated it, it didn’t fill the void he’d allowed the art to take hold of. He knew it was stupid, to live for a strangers coffee scribbles, but he had let it get there. He was stupid. He tried. He really did. He tried to see the beauty in other things. The flowers Matt would bring in to Dan. Allison’s pretty painted smiles or the kiss marks she liked to leave on them all. Dan’s proud grin and the ruffle from her strong hands in his hair. The home he had made in the FoxTail. It was something, it was important, but it wasn’t everything. There was a mysterious void in his life. And he was mad. He was mad that some stranger had this power over him. That he had let them have it. That he hadn’t noticed his control slip until it was too late and his greedy hands had grabbed hold of coffee splattered tables.

 

Matt had taken to bringing them all sunflowers. “To replace the little bit of beauty the stranger left behind.” he had smiled. They had decorated the unpainted tables with them. It only lasted so long.

 

“Hey, keep your chin up there ok?” Dan says after a long day. She’s perceptive and knows he’s lagging, that this stupid lack of stupid coffee art has affected his stupid brain, “something will show up to help you believe again.”

 

He doesn’t believe her, but he doesn’t say it. He just gives a small, weary smile and nod. A quiet, “see you tomorrow” and he leaves. He never accepts the rides home, he isn’t about to start now that he feels hopeless.

 

He walks the almost barren streets, wrapping his arms around himself in the face of the cold air blowing against him. He shakes his head and picks up his pace. First into a jog, then into a run.

 

Then he sees it.

 

He trips and almost lands on his face. Instead he gets his hands under him, his knees scraping the hard concrete under him. Is that….is that a coffee stain?

 

His hands tremble as he reaches out and touches a dry, elaborate forest of brown on the sidewalk. The wind blows again, and a crinkle sounds nearby. His head snaps to the direction, his eyes zeroing in on a white and orange cup, caught in a barely alive bush on the side of the road.  Neil feels his breath catch in his chest.

 

It’s not possible, is it?

 

Neil didn’t believe in fate, but he couldn’t deny the small smile threatening to break across his face.

 

He shook himself out of his stupor, pulling himself up.

 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow if it was still there on his way to work, he would take it as a sign. Not tonight. Not like this. He took a deep breath, looked at the forest one more time, then ran home. His heart racing more than usual after a run.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	5. To Be Seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it's not so bad

It had been a week of Renee sitting with Andrew on the sidewalk, his coffee pieces marking the length of his refusal to go anywhere. Renee said nothing, just watched as Andrew ran his brush over the ragged concrete, let the curses of pedestrians wash over her, knew they did the same to Andrew too. He truly didn’t care about them or their words. But he did about hers, and she knew it.

 

She let him sulk and avoid for one more day, then brought it up that next night. Their night. She sat next to him, her hair in an almost amusing ponytail sticking straight back from her head with very little effect from gravity. Sweat covered her body and his. She stared across the room, at the wall next to them. He turned his head to stare at her, knowing she was about to say something smart that he didn’t want to hear. So he stared at her as she stared at the wall, his gaze almost expectant. 

 

“There’s nothing wrong with being seen, Andrew,” She said finally, some time later. 

 

Andrew tensed, his shoulders bunching up around his ears as he looked anywhere but her. He disagreed. He disagreed Very, Very much. There was a lot wrong with being seen. He knew. He grits his teeth and bites out, “How would you know.”

 

She finally turns to him and smiles her irritatingly kind, knowing smiles, “Because I know. I let you see me, and you let me see you. Even the ugly parts.” 

 

He couldn’t look at her anymore. He turned his gaze back to the ceiling. 

 

“Come with me tomorrow,” she offers, taking his silence as his refusal to agree with her, “buy me a coffee, for beating you today.” 

 

He grit his teeth more, “Fine.”

 

She smiles and lets him stew in his silence. 

  
  


\---

  
  


He picks her up early that next day, his hands tight on the steering wheel. He has the radio turned up loud to something nonsensical. Renee doesn’t mind, she knows it’s his nerves. They drive in ‘silence’ and he parks across the street from the FoxTail. They don’t end up actually getting out of the car or going in until the lunch rush is almost over. Renee lets the time wash over her in silence, the radio having been changed and lowered long ago. Andrew stares straight ahead the entire time, his grip slowly loosening and falling from the wheel until his hands hit his lap. Then he makes his decision and throws open the door. They walk in together, and it isn’t as busy as it usually is. Andrew’s shoulders remain tense but Renee’s presence, albeit it annoying and what got him here in the first place, ground him.

 

They step up to the counter not long after their arrival, only a handful of customers before them. The woman behind the counter smiles at Renee the moment she sees her, bright and obvious. Andrew almost scoffs. Then her gaze turns to Andrew and a frown pinches her face for just a flash.

 

“Renee!” she starts, Andrew knows her name’s Allison but he doesn’t care, “oh, hello. I didn’t know you had a boyfriend!” she tries to laugh it off, but it’s so awkward. It almost makes Andrew laugh. He rolls his eyes instead.

 

Renee smiles her perfect little smile, “Oh no, this is Andrew. He’s my best friend.” 

 

Andrew zones out, ignoring their conversation, ignores whatever Renee orders but hands his money over at the right time. Renee smiles and Allison looks like she’d rather be dealing with Renee alone. She politely pulls them from the conversation and leads Andrew to an empty table. A bare, empty table. He scowls, knowing exactly what game she’s playing. She leaves a few minutes later to get their drinks, staying a bit longer than necessary. Andrew sees the blonde barista give her more than what she asked for. He bets there’s a slip of paper with a phone number somewhere amongst the freebies. It’d be a pity if there wasn’t. They were both clearly interested.

 

She returns with more than she went for and carefully places something that Andrew Doesn’t Drink in front of him. He glares at her and whatever weird, pretty green concoction she had already begun drinking. He looks down once more at the abomination in front of him. He keeps his hands flat on the table but it only lasts so long. Renee knew him too well, as scary as that thought could have been about anyone else.

 

She watches him slip the brush from his sleeve. Watches him spoon out a bit of coffee at a time onto the saucer. Then watches as he begins slow, careful strokes over the table. It’s easy to be lost in it again, easy to think of nothing. To ignore the way she smiles at him and watches him, the way people mill about ignoring him the way he likes. It’s easy to think only of the smiling face across from him being stained onto the wood beneath his fingers. To think of the colors of her hair and the shape of flowers that match them. To ring them around her head like the fae she is.

 

To agree, privately and only once that maybe she was right. Maybe it isn’t so bad being seen. At least, not by her. 

 

Time is lost easily to him. This isn’t just another  _ painting _ , this was  _ Renee _ . And try as he might to deny it, she  _ meant  _ something to him. 

 

It’s a testament he doesn’t notice them being observed. At least for the one second they are before the observer ruins it by opening his big mouth.

 

“Holy shit! It’s you?!” Andrew jerks so hard the saucer audibly clinks against the cup beside it and the liquid inside sloshes dangerously close to the edge.

 

Andrew slowly turns to the man, the Giant Matt. His eyes are so wide Andrew is surprised they haven’t popped out of his head and rolled under their table. 

 

It’s also a testament to Bee that Andrew can’t immediately tell if he wants to stab Matt, or run away. But Renee stops both thoughts in their track- momentarily at least- by smiling and asking, “Oh? He’s done this before?”

 

Andrew glares, not liking her sweet innocent act. A glance to Allison behind Matt confirms she doesn’t either. Smart in that, at least. But the least subtle man in the room shakes his spiky head and exclaims, “Yes!”

 

Renee feigns disapproval, a small frown on her small face, “Oh Andrew, you didn’t clean your messes?”

 

Andrew feels his eyebrows twitch as he stares at her, his head tilting slowly as if to say, ‘really? Really Renee? You think I would do such a thing? Even if you didn’t know about  _ this  _ really?’

 

But her true intentions are instantaneous, the employees of The Foxtail too predictable, they all clamor around and begin defending him. 

 

“Oh no! We’re glad he didn’t!” one of them says, and the others latch on to it and begin throwing compliments left and right.

 

And who the  _ fuck  _ did these people think they were? Complimenting him like this? After he had effectively Destroyed several bits of their property and made more messes for them all to clean up? Where did they get off, saying so many Nice Things about  _ him _ ? A  _ monster.  _

 

Andrew hates the feeling of his face, the heat he feels rising. The color he knows he’s turning. The racing of his heart making his hands shake. He hears a door in the distance, and not long after sees the small redhead he’s caught himself staring at before. His mouth drops and his eyes widen. Two icy pools in the winter and Andrew can’t take it anymore. 

 

He stands in the middle of their tirade, uncaring that the chair screeches and falls over. He doesn’t care as he pushes them aside and throws the door open in his retreat. They try to stop him, some even brave enough to try and grab out for him. They don’t follow him. Lucky for them they don’t. He’s starting to think he wants to stab someone after all.

 

He hears the jangle of the door even as he’s halfway down the sidewalk. He tenses, they couldn’t be dumb enough to follow them could they?

 

“Hey wait a minute!” they were. Andrew takes two more steps before stopping. Every muscle tense as he slowly turns to see who he’s going to get to stab.

 

It’s the redhead. “What.” he grits it out, barely a word, more of a snarl.

 

“Is it really you? The one that painted all of those things?”

 

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” 

 

“I just….thank you.”

  
Andrew’s struck by those words and the face the redhead- a glance to a name tag- the face  _ Neil _ makes, because what the fuck? “What the fuck do you mean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think!! i think this little story is almost over!


	6. A Confession of Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honesty

 

“What the fuck do you mean.” The blonde asked, but it didn’t really sound like a question. The inflection- or lack there of- in his voice still told Neil to answer. He feels heat rush to his cheeks. He glances briefly at his shoes before making eye contact once more. His eyes gave little away, he was the hardest person Neil had ever had to read but for some reason his mind was screaming at him to tell the truth. To answer at all. Anything more than just hightailing it out of there after making an idiot of himself. He had the shovel now he needed to dig the hole deeper.

 

“Your paintings,” he starts, before he can psych himself out of it, “they were the only thing getting me through the days. When I saw them…. When I saw them I knew that life, maybe it wasn’t so bad. It couldn’t be. Not if someone could make things like  _ that _ with something…..well...something so dumb.”

 

The blonde doesn’t say anything, his eyes widen just a fraction though. The ice melts just a bit, a blink and you’d miss it change. But Neil’s looking. He’s  _ looking  _ and he  _ sees.  _ They stare at each other. Who knows how long, but then the man turns and walks away. The set of his shoulders less rigid...or maybe more, Neil can’t be sure. 

 

Neil lets him go. But he doesn’t regret saying what he did. He feels a smile, small and slow break across his lips. He presses his thumb to his lower lip and turns himself, heading back on shaky legs to The FoxTail. 

 

He can see everyone wants to ask him questions the moment he enters. The girl with rainbow hair has since gathered up all of her and the blonde’s things and is smiling an almost scary, knowing smile as she tells his coworkers she’ll make her leave. Once she’s gone the Foxes pounce on Neil.

 

“What happened?”   
  
“What’d he say?”   
  
“What’d you do?”

 

“Is he coming back?”

 

It’s all bombarded at the same time but Neil just shrugs, fighting that small smile from before, “Who knows? Maybe we freaked him out.”

 

They start fighting amongst themselves at that, Neil just squeezes past to run the register. The others taper off quickly when they realize Customers are still a Thing that can happen at any moment. They don’t stop their questions or glances at all throughout the day. He answers them all truthfully.

 

He doesn’t  _ know.  _

 

He doesn’t know the man’s name. He doesn’t know why he did it. He doesn’t know why  _ he  _ chased him out. He doesn’t know if he’ll be back. He doesn’t know if they scared him off for good. He doesn’t  _ know.  _   
  
Eventually closing comes, and Wymack sees the newest painting. He lets them keep it. Try as he might, his Foxes knew he missed these daily paintings as well.

 

Neil smiles on his run home, his feet passing over the long squares of coffee stained cement.

 

He feels lighter than he has in a long time. 

  
  


\---

  
  


The next day it’s almost unfairly busy, but if Neil knows anything he knows his Foxes. He knows they’re all scanning faces. Just like he is. The breakfast rush passes by and bleeds into lunch. When it’s finally dying down does Neil see blonde at the bell. He’s been burned before- he finally realizes  _ just  _ how many people decided to go blonde. But this shade was different. Or maybe it was just Neil. 

 

His heart pitters and patters and skips until finally he’s face to face with a familiar apathetic blonde. His smile stretches before he can stop it. The blonde doesn’t seem phased, but Neil sees the way his eyes dart in miniscule glances across Neil’s face. As if looking for a lie in his smile.

 

“What can I make for you?” Neil asks.

 

He gets the most surprising answer in the form of, “Whatever’s sweetest.” 

 

“I can do that….name?” He asks, trying not to hope but feeling it burn away at all his crumpled edges.

 

“...Andrew,” he responds and Neil can’t help but beam.

 

“Andrew it is.” 

  
  


\---

  
  


It picks up again shortly after Andrew (Andrew!) pays and settles at an empty table. Neil doesn’t get to see what he does with what he made him, or the extra  _ something _ Matt shoved in alongside it. 

 

He doesn’t get to see what, or  _ if  _ Andrew  _ drew _ something. Not until the end of the day and it’s Allison that sees it first.

 

Neil’s heart skips at the look she shoots him, the wolfish grin and the wolf whistle Matt shoots. 

 

Neil steps over, hands shaking and takes in the table. More color than he’s seen on any of Andrew’s previous pieces. 

 

It’s Neil.

 

Andrew painted Neil.

 

Smiling.

 

Andrew painted Neil smiling.

 

“That one’s definitely a keeper.” Wymack says from above. Neil can’t help but agree. For once in his life, his face staring back at him doesn’t make his skin crawl. If Andrew had found something enough in it to paint...who was Neil to say it was ugly?

 

He even made use of the colors from his  _ extras _ . It was the most colorful table they had and Neil felt butterflies.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO THIS IS THE END!!
> 
> at least of this particular story!! I have a ton of little extras for you all!! ill probably keep it to every two days but know if i could id post them all at the same time!! Please stay tuned and keep letting me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> in case you want to see the arts! (also theyre on my blog,thats where im linking, plz follow or hmu if you want!)  
> link- http://yeollie-bells.tumblr.com/post/177666719663/sosuperawesome-giulia-bernardelli-on-instagram
> 
> Also if you want to hear a cute song that has NOTHING to do with this au, but might be andreil-y? plus its all ive listened to while writing this here it is!  
> link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoeVh8ldW_I


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